


Catch-22

by UbiquitousMixie



Category: Bridges of Madison County
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 20:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/pseuds/UbiquitousMixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleep is cruel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch-22

Robert's there, just as he was that day all those years ago. He's standing outside the gate, watching her. The breeze picks up, blows his salt and pepper hair askew. Francesca can't see his eyes -- the sun is bright and his face is cast in shadow. She can just make out the shape of his smile, wide and warm. She stands on the porch, her hand gripping the post so tightly that her knuckles are white. Her heart is pounding in her throat. 

They stare at each other for what seems like an eternity before they are both catapulted forward by some unseen force. She isn't sure who moves first. All that she is aware of is that she is touching him again.

They hold each other awkwardly and laugh not because the moment is anticlimactic but because no hug or kiss can actually properly express the euphoria they mutually feel.

When their lips finally do meet (Robert makes the first move), it feels like home. It's the kind of kiss they might have had with each other every night before bed. It's soft. Their lips brush gently back and forth as they reacquaint themselves with the way it feels to be in each other's arms. 

She always wondered what their first kiss would be like when they met again. She's always partly expected that it would be filled with urgency, as if trying to make up for years of lost time in the span of a few minutes. 

This kiss is perfect. The way he holds her to him, his hands alternating between touching the small of her back and cupping her cheeks, and the way he whispers her name breathlessly against her mouth is perfect. 

It feels too good to be true. 

It feels like a dream. 

When Francesca opens her eyes and blinks, adjusting to the darkness in her bedroom, she realizes that it was, in fact, a dream. Her heart sinks immediately and she wills herself not to cry, though she can already feel the sting of tears in her eyes. 

She rolls onto her side, away from Richard. The moon is bright tonight. It illuminates the stack of magazines on the floor beside her nightstand that she had been skimming through before Richard decided that the light was keeping him awake. National Geographic is on top. 

Francesca reaches down and, with minimal movement, flips the first few pages open until she reaches what she's looking for. The page with Robert's picture is there. Her heart clenches. It hurts so much to see him, to miss him, that she has to close her eyes and count to thirteen before she can muster the strength to look again. 

This picture is all she has. It's all she's allowed. 

She kisses her fingertips and presses them to the page. It's not the same as kissing his face, but she has nothing else. 

Francesca curls herself into a ball and closes her eyes, squeezing her eyelids fiercely shut as she attempts to conjure the elements of her dream. She wants to be back there, in her false reality, in Robert's arms. 

Sleep, whether it allows her to revisit that dream or not, will be cruel to her. 

She hates nighttime for this reason. Every night when she sleeps she's allowed to have Robert back, and every morning she has to let him go again. 

\---


End file.
